Yesterday I began a painting of my local river – it’s the view from Red Bridge, which I cycle over…

I count myself very lucky that, often throughout my life, children have felt impelled to offer me their house-cleaning services; it hasn’t happened for a while so I was glad to find last week that my housework is still of appeal to capable little hands – long may it be the case.

Actually, after a week had passed since the subject of doing my housework had cropped up, I thought that Jade and Drew (the children of the handsome pilot who lives two doors down from me) might have forgotten or withdrawn their rash offer, after all, the idea had begun as something of a joke. But no, on Friday afternoon (when the gates were open – my new policy of friendliness) there was a knock on the front door and a little head peered through the window – it was five year old Drew.

“I don’t think she has any clothes on,” Drew whispered to his older sister.

“Yes I have!” I called out, pulling my tee-shirt over my bikini top (well, it was hot and I was alone on my own) as I went to the door.

“We’ve come to do your housework, Sally,” the pair said together.

“Can you use a broom and a mop?” I asked.

“Of course,” they laughed.

“I think I saw some brooms in the garage,” said Drew.

The children flew around, inside and out, with their brushes while I trailed after them with the dustpan. Out in the garage Drew delighted in finding a bunch of old leaves that had blown in under the roller-door.

“Look what I found,” he said with a smile before brushing them into the pan.

“Our Dad’s a stickler for cleaning,” offered Jade by way of an explanation.

“What about your mum?” I asked.

“Not quite so much. Sometimes she doesn’t agree with Dad but she goes along with him,” Jade added.

Little Kevin, the Charlie Brown lookalike from down the road, turned up on his bike (minus the trainer wheels) and came into the driveway. He looked so cute in his blue and white chequered short-sleeve shirt and his big cycle helmet which left only his eyes and nose showing.

“Oh no, it’s Kevin,” Jade said softly.

“What’s the matter with Kevin?” I responded.

“He’s a bad influence,” she began.

“Yeah, he swears and I caught it off him,” Drew joined in.

Luckily Kevin wasn’t keen on the idea of doing housework and he pootled off happily on his own without realising he was a bad influence.

“You see those nasty marks there on the concrete?” Drew asked. “Why don’t I just nip home and grab a bucket of soapy water to throw over them? That’ll soon get them off.”

“No, let’s mop the floors inside instead,” I suggested.”I wonder if Sue has enough mops…”

“I bet she has,” said Jade.

I thought of my own two mops (albeit that one of them was bought in desperation and proved to be nearly useless) and I reckoned that my sensible ten year old helper was right, which she was; Sue has three mops, only one of which is useless.

Jade and Drew mopped all the tiled floors, wiped all the worktops and tables, and dusted every other surface until the house was gleaming and smelt like a mountain stream; and when they left with their handsome father who came to collect them home for dinner, they also left behind some footprints on the not quite dry white tiles. I didn’t wipe them away. I rather liked the signs of the little feet and they stayed there for several days until this morning when finally I succumbed to the need to clean the floor myself.

From Chris:
Well, after the noisiest night down on the railway line below us so far, through which even I, who don’t have a problem with extraneous noise at night, found it difficult to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time, I was eager to see what it was the blokes were doing all night that could make all that racket.  The results are attached – and I guess that, snug inside all that massive shuttering, resides a spanking new, fully reinforced parapet wall, guaranteed to withstand the forces of Nature for generations (hopefully!)

I have only just started out. I am less than half a kilometre from home. Admittedly, it is hot – about thirty-three degrees centigrade – but, even so, I cannot understand how I can be so out of condition because I ride in the heat almost every day. Nevertheless, water is trickling in small rivulets down from my hair and and over my forehead and cheeks. With the back of a hand I wipe away the beads of water collecting under my jaw.

A bit of a breeze is blowing and I don’t even feel hot – I have acclimatised to the Queensland temperatures – but my hair is soaked.

“Is something wrong with me?” I ask myself (silently, of course).

A droplet falls and hits my left calf as I round the corner into Easy Street (love that name!).

“Crikey!” I say aloud (in my Australian dialect).

As I follow the road around to the left another droplet falls, this time hitting my right thigh.

Then I remember and laugh aloud. All is well – it rained last night! I always hang my helmet upside down from the handlebars, as you can see from the photographs….

Later on, when I have more time, I’ll tell you about the day the handsome pilot’s children came to do my housework.

One afternoon nearly two weeks ago, when the big gates of my abode were wide open and I was chatting to Jade (the handsome pilot’s ten year old daughter) out on the nature-strip, two cyclists pulled up beside us; it was Drew, Jade’s little brother (aged five), and his friend and neighbour, Kevin (also five), who looks like Charlie Brown.

“Sally, you’ll never guess what..” Kevin said in the knowledge that I would respond correctly.

“What?” I fell into line.

“My trainer wheels came off yesterday!” he gushed with pride.

“Oh, well done Kevin!” I enthused, “I hadn’t noticed but now I can see. You look great, and so grown up!”

“My trainer wheels came off last week,” announced Drew.

“Really? That’s so great. How grown up you both are now! And you have nice strong arms by the look of it,” I added.

In the same way that boys have always raised their arms to bring up their muscles, the two little chaps showed me their bulging biceps and I was duly impressed.

“I can do push-ups,” said Drew.

“Really? No!”

“Yes, my Dad taught me,” Drew said proudly.

For a moment I had a mental picture of the handsome pilot doing push-ups, then Drew threw himself onto the grass and proceeded to show me that he wasn’t kidding.

“You are strong,” I complimented.

“And I can do it with one arm and one leg,” he said.

And he showed me how it was done, after which I had another mental picture of his father doing it.

Kevin, still straddling his bike, said goodbye and cycled off, perhaps a bit deflated, on his bike without training wheels.

Back on his feet Drew asked:

“What do you do in that big house every day Sally?”

“Well, there is a lot of housework to do in such a big house,” I exaggerated, and added for effect, “Sue must be a slave to housework.”

Drew’s face lit up as he had a brainwave.

“Jade and I could do your housework for you,” he looked for confirmation from his sister.

“Of course we could,” Jade backed him up. “We have to help Mum but it would be more fun to help you.”

“Can you mop floors and polish furniture?” I asked.

“Yes, and if you’ve got a ladder I could get up on the roof and polish that too,” Drew said for the sake of humour and we all laughed. Then he added, “We’ll make the house even more shinier for you than when Sue does it!”

In my next blog post I will tell you what happened when the children of the handsome pilot turned up to do my housework.

The grand gates at the entrance to my house here at Lakeland Court are high, in the Victorian style (as in Victoria, the state, rather than the old unamused queen), and by my reckoning they are about six feet six at the highest point in the middle of each half. Out on the pillar, on the side facing the nature-strip, there is a door-bell system with speakers and buttons, which no-one uses; and there is a combination lock, the secret code of which is known by all the nice people who might want to call by, including the neighbours, but they don’t use it… not during my tenure as house-sitter, anyway.

It has taken several weeks but now I know the form; people observe the other code – the code of the gates. When closed, the gates – made of black metal palings – seem to attempt to be friendly by not obscuring the view (from either side) too much, and yet, the message is clear – Do Not Disturb! When the gates are opened partially, to garden path size, the would-be callers (often the local children) stand at the entrance and talk amongst themselves, before deciding either to stay in the cul-de-sac or to walk through the gate and come to the front door. Sometimes the children stand just the other side of the opening and talk to me as if invisible gates were still barring the way; if I walk over to them the obstruction disappears and the children zig-zag back and forth like tadpoles over the opening, yet confining themselves to that small area. When the gates are open wide it is different – everyone feels free…

Last evening, as the sun was setting outside and I was on the phone inside, the gates were still wide open and my lovely New Zealander next-door neighbour called out:

“Cooee, Sally?” .

“Hello Wendy,” I sang out, walking to the screen door. “I’m sorry but I’m on the phone.”

“That’s alright, I just wanted to make sure that you were okay,” Wendy said, about to walk away.

I opened the door and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“Thanks Wendy, I’m fine,” I told her.

“Hey, you’re a great colour,” she touched the my tanned shoulder.

“Fishin'” I laughed.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said.

Well, that’s how it is with the folk here at Lakeland Court – you have to open the gates wide to discover how warm and generous they are.

The children, too, are delightful. There are the handsome pilot’s children, Jade and Drew (he with the spiky hair); then there’s Kevin, the five-year-old who looks like a real-life version of Charlie Brown (from the Peanuts cartoon); and Luke and his two-year-old brother Jack (with the blue cycle-helmet like a German helmet). They love it when they see me coming home on my bicycle and they know that soon those gates will be open wide and welcoming. I’m going off for a cycle ride now but I will tell you more about the children later on – perhaps I should begin with the day Drew and Jade offered to come around and do my housework. Sorry, but you will have to wait until my next blog…

“Diane?” I asked over the phone yesterday morning, “Would you and Henry like to join us for dinner at The Windaroo Tavern tonight?”

(I’m a believer in doing things on a whim – then you won’t be disappointed if it doesn’t turn out great because you haven’t long been looking forward to the event, and if it is wonderful, then the surprise makes it even more so.)

“That sounds pretty good…” answered Diane.

“But I thought you might like to come around to Roland’s earlier – maybe mid-afternoon – to do a bit of ‘cloud-shooting’ again?” I asked enticingly – I had a feeling that would hook her.

“That sounds even better!” my brother’s girlfriend became excited. She was, after all, the Maid Marian, number one cloud-shooter, from last weekend’s tournament.

Unfortunately, I turned up at my old friend Roland’s place a little later than anticipated (on my part, but just as late as he had expected) for a spot of “fishin'” so we had to make do with local river fishing, rather than going all the way down to Jacob’s Well to our preferred location. As you will see from the photographs, Roland caught a catfish while I caught a tan (and very nearly a big mud crab that let go as it surfaced from the river).

As for the cloud-shooting, it is such an exhilarating and joyful experience that the participants will let you put flowers in their hair and behind their ears and take photographs of them like nymphs and fairies from a Midsummer Night’s Dream – and I’m referring to the macho men! No arrows actually landed in a bucket this time although one of Maid Marian’s arrows rested against the side.

Dinner was great, the dancing was great.

“Sally, you look exactly as you did all those years ago,” Henry and Roland agreed.

“That’s just because I haven’t learnt any new steps,” I replied and everyone laughed because each of us still danced in the same manner as we did in the eighties.

Cajoled by the music and the hour, we visitors were glad of the offer of an impromptu sleep-over, without which we would not have danced until two in the morning. Happy, but tired, at last we went to our rooms with the thought of a sleep-in and a late breakfast very much in mind.

Shortly after going to bed I was awakened by Henry and Diane talking.

“They have a lot of energy,” I thought to myself. I didn’t like to enquire if anything was amiss.

Later on I was awakened again. I thought I heard laughter. I covered my ears with my pillow lest I should hear something I shouldn’t.

At six in the morning I heard voices outside my bedroom door – Roland was talking to Diane and Henry. So much for the sleep-in! I thought that I, too, had better get up.

Henry and Diane’s bed had broken within an hour of their falling into it and they spent the night on the mattress, which they had dragged into the lounge-room.

Breakfast was delicious and the whole weekend was perfect… well nearly, I thought how much Chris would have enjoyed it. He would have laughed about the broken bed and no doubt remembered, as did I, some of our falling through bed-slats experiences… when we had booked up for cheap holidays on the spur of the moment.

From an email sent by Chris:

Just thought you’d like to see that, praise the Lord, the men are putting in those massive concrete blocks not only behind the main breach up the way, but also behind “our” bit of wall  structure to strengthen it up; I had been a bit afraid that, because the wall wasn’t actually breached at that particular point there, they would simply be replacing the parapet wall but not reinforcing it.  However, it looks as though we will end up better protected than before the storms, which is great.

From me:

No time fer writing ’cause I’m goin’ fishin’ agin!

In response to my last blog post entitled, “A Letter From Sari”, one of my readership (a bright spark who calls himself Singh A. Songasixpence) claimed “it brings to mind the old Don Maclean song ‘Sari Sari Night’!” I was surprised that the possibly more apt title of “Whose Sari Now?” had not been picked up.

Indeed, I was further astonished when I checked the lyrics of the Connie Francis hit (1957) “Who’s Sorry Now?” on Google. In particular, the line, “Who’s sad and blue?” struck a chord because the beautiful sari, now posted, fits that description exactly. And on the subject of postage, that brings me to the lines, “You had your way, Now you must pay”…

I was in the Post Office at the Hyperdome this afternoon – I had cycled over – and the blue sari, along with an accompanying letter (from Sari!) and two sets of blue bracelets – one of  them metal, the other beaded – was tucked into a recycled padded bag. The Indian lady serving me (what a coincidence!) had a bewildered look on her face when I popped the bag on the scales.

“May I keep the pen?”, I asked. “Because it has Australia Post written on it – a keepsake…”

She looked surprised and I guessed that not many people ask if they may keep one. She smiled and nodded. (I guessed she wasn’t supposed to let me keep it.)

“That will be – no it can’t be! – can it? Please to wait a moment, hold on,” the lady checked again and looked in disbelief.

“It’s a sari,” I told her.

She nodded knowingly (nine thousand yards of gossamer material edged with gold and folded neatly into a small bag – it all came back to her).

I began to worry. It has been several years since I sent anything airmail from Australia. I had been guessing the postage would cost around ten dollars.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” the nice lady said to prepare me for a shock, “that will be thirty-nine dollars and seventy-five cents, please. I wonder if you would like to take anything out?”

I thought of the heavy bracelets (total price $5) and I jumped at the opportunity.

“Yes please.”

“You can take it over to the table and fill out this customs form at the same time,” she said kindly as she could see I was suffering from shock.

Unlike England, where there are few dedicated Post Offices left and we have to queue in the backs of newsagent shops for the attention of perhaps one or two harassed and often belligerent members of staff (not in my home town of Dawlish, of course), the Australia Post shop had six or seven assistants and one of these, noticing my pallor, came over to help me.

“Is everything alright?” she asked (probably suspecting the cause of my dismay).

“Can this small package really cost forty dollars to send to England by airmail?” I pleaded.

The woman weighed it in her hand and then on the scales.

“It is just over the limit,” she admitted, “but if you could bring it under five hundred grammes it will be less than half the price to send.”

Back at the counter a third lady staff member, aware of my recent trauma, was “just like a friend, right to the end” and informed me with pleasure that I could re-insert one of the sets of bracelets and still come in under the threshold.

“And you must put in the letter,” she said with concern. Her sweet motherly expression told me that she was sorry to have to charge me anything.

“Thank you so much for all your kindness,” I said before leaving.

“It’s nice comments like that that make my job worthwhile,” she smiled like a happy angel.

So now all is well; the blue sari is on its way, nobody has need to be sorry, I have a red and white Australia Post pen as a memento and (below) you have the lyrics and a bit of extra information about the song, Who’s Sorry Now… if you should happen to be interested.

Who’s Sorry Now?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the Connie Francis album, see Who’s Sorry Now? (album). For the Marie Osmond album, see Who’s Sorry Now (album).

“Who’s Sorry Now?”
Single by Connie Francis
B-side	You Were Only Foolin’ (While I Was Fallin’ In Love)
Released	November 1957
Recorded	October 2, 1957
Genre	Rock ‘n’ Roll
Length	2:16
Label	MGM Records K 12588
Writer(s)	Ted Snyder, Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby
Producer(s)	Harry A. Myerson
Connie Francis singles chronology
“Who’s Sorry Now?” is a popular song with music written by Ted Snyder and lyrics by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby. It was published in 1923.[1]

“Who’s Sorry Now?” was featured in the Marx Brothers film A Night in Casablanca (1946), directed by Archie Mayo and released by United Artists.

“Who’s Sorry Now”